


feelings.docx

by SapphoIsBurning



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alcohol, Anxiety, Bulimia, Dean is a writer, Gen, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not Kayfabe Compliant, POV First Person, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Unresolved Sexual Tension, WIP Amnesty, intercontinental title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 00:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6542569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoIsBurning/pseuds/SapphoIsBurning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean writes down everything he thinks or feels for one day, even the bad thoughts. Then he sends them to the person who told him to do all that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feelings.docx

**Author's Note:**

> This fic comes from an attempt to write Dean's gimmick as if it were serious, to use my experiences as a crazy person to write Dean as a crazy person. It's also in the first person and has a gimmicky framing device of its own. Oh well. I'm posting this as a WIP amnesty because at one point I thought of doing a longer piece like that but I think it's done enough as it is. It's not doing me any good sitting in my drafts, that's for sure.
> 
> So, that said, this fic has graphic depictions of intrusive thoughts including violent and suicidal thoughts, self-harm, disordered eating, and a panic attack. Mind the tags. More sheepish notes at end.

Hey~~~

So

When I saw you

You told me to write more

So I’m writing more

Maybe I will get it out of my system

Probably not----

So. Here’s some stuff I wrote

We left the arena. I drove. Roman spaced out. We got to the hotel. He flopped on the bed. I  started the shower up. As soon as the hiss of the water came on, the litany poured out of me, and I had to admit to myself that Roman could hear me. That's what I call it in my head, anyway: the list of the fucked up shit that comes out of my mouth when I'm alone, or think I'm alone, or when I'm alone enough, or when I'm stressed or upset.

"Kill yourself. Kill yourself. You're worthless. Kill everyone. Hate them. They hate you. Stab. Stab. Kill. Killkellkelll..." I repeated the syllable until it dissolved into meaningless mumbling. I do that sometimes. Sometimes I try to turn a word into something else: kill becomes call, which is a little less fucked up thing to chant to yourself, even if it doesn't make any goddamn sense.

Roman's heart breaks a little whenever he catches me doing it, but I'm so embarrassed by it he usually pretends he didn't hear anything. But then he makes me talk about my feelings. Sometimes it comes with intense hugging, so, I go along with it. You know how he is.

Not everyone backstage is so damn courteous, but since I cultivated the "unstable" gimmick they've come around to assume it is all part of the character. Then again, the best performances are based in some kind of truth, aren't they? And truth is, I'm crazy.

It feels good to say it, say it as me, not as part of a promo, even a shoot. I'm fucking crazy. My head's a screwed up place to be. I've made it work for me, for a while, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Anyway, I was taking a goddamn shower and talking to myself, like I do. It's like the thoughts pour out of me and I have to say them, even though I don't want to say or do any of them. But the shower's a good place for it. Kinda like jerking off--even if someone hears you they pretend they didn't. It's like kayfabe. We both agree to mutual deception.

I came out of the shower into the hotel room and unsurprisingly, Roman was giving me the sad puppy eyes. "I'm fine, Ro, don't worry about it."

He just looked at me skeptically. I walked past him to the other side of the room and rolled my eyes.

"No, really. Turn on the tv, I just want to fuckin' space out for a while."

"I ordered a pizza. Got you left beef."

I turned my back to him, dropped the towel, and picked some clothes up out of my duffel bag. I'm pretty sure he snuck a peek at my ass, not like he doesn't get to see it in the locker room all the time, but again--mutual deception. I pretend I have no idea. It's how we get through the day, right?

I pulled on some boxers and some sweats and rolled onto the bed. I had the window side, he had the door side. I don't like having my back to the door, ever. Ro lets me have the good spot because...well, he just lets me. I don't know what would happen if he didn't.

He turned the tv on. Wheel of fucking Fortune. Great. "Come on, Sajak, tell us what you really think," I said out loud to the tv.

Pat Sajak's an asshole. Don't you think he has a punchable face? I feel bad for Vanna.

Roman's better at most game shows than I am. Benefits of college or whatever, even if he was a jock. Is a jock. I would kick his ass on the Price Is Right, though. He never had to worry about what shit costs.

"Solve the puzzle! A passage to india ink," Roman shouted at the tv.

"What the fuck is a passage to ink," I said.

"It's before and after, it's like a title and then the last word in the title is the first word in the other thing?"

"Don't look at me like I'm stupid," I said, feeling hot. Then I felt bad about saying it. I'm trying to be less sensitive.

He looked at me all soft, tilting his damn head and squinching up his eyebrows. He was going to say some emotional shit, but then the pizza arrived. He got it and paid the guy. I saw the guy looking past him at me. I couldn't tell if he recognized us or what.

So we ate the pizzas, and then Jeopardy came on and I felt even dumber except in the category of "HEAVY METAL" where I knew a couple. Of course Roman knew tons of shit.

"You gotta be on Celebrity Jeopardy, man,” I said.

"They'd never have a wrestler on. Come on."

"They'll fuckin have anyone on. You should call them! Get somebody from corporate to call them, that's how that shit works, right?"

He just shook his head. Whatever. He'd kick ass.

Final Jeopardy was like rocks and minerals or something I don't care about so I wandered off to go get some beer from the convenience store across the parking lot from the hotel. It's good to get outside and walk around and flap my arms where nobody can see me. I rolled my neck in five circles, rolled my shoulders in five circles, my waist, my ankles. I windmilled a little. Could probably claim it's stretching or pilates or yoga or whatever if I got caught but I'd rather just find a dark corner to be weird in, outside the lights of the parking lot. Not like anybody'd have much luck trying to mug *me*.

So I got a six-pack and still didn't get recognized and went back to the room and by then Roman had shut the tv off and was reading a book. I turned it back on. ESPN, why not, something to drown out whatever was festering in my head. I had some beers, we ignored each other for the most part except for the parts where we kept looking at each other when we thought the other one was not looking, and then I fell asleep at some point. We got up the next day and left for where we had to go. Owens got the back seat this time, and Ro drove. I like driving but I did the last leg. Owens always remembers where the fuck we're travelling cause he's gotta do heel shit like make fun of their sports teams, and that takes research. You gotta read up to figure out the worst thing to say. He never goes for cheap heat. It's not that Portland sucks it's that...I don't remember what the fuck he had to say about the Trail Blazers or whatever but you know what I mean.

We're feuding and he beats the shit out of me all the time on TV, but we're friends. Like, we can stand to be around each other at least. I think he looks at my butt too but I'm not as sure as I am with Roman. But I'm a paranoid motherfucker, so maybe nobody thinks about me as much as I think that they must be thinking about me.

When you have a title, you get to carry the title around with you between cities. You know that. Why am I explaining that? This means that if you're a knucklehead like me, it's possible to lose it. Problems Reigns never has. But I do.

That all goes to say about two hours out of Minneapolis I realized I didn't know where the Intercontinental Title was and my eyes just about rolled up into my head.

"Stupid!" I hit myself in the leg. I wanted to hit myself in the head but, uh, that's frowned on? I don't get to do it unless I'm really mad, or alone? I started breathing heavy. It felt like 20 Kevin Owenses on my chest.

"Dean, what's up?" Roman said.

"Did he forget his title again?" Owens said from the back.

I groaned.

"Are you sure you didn't put it in the trunk?" Owens asked again.

"Yeah, D, maybe it's in the trunk. Let me find a place to get off the freeway and pull over, and we'll check."

I bit my cheek and made two fists, driving my fingernails into my palms. Then I ground my fists into my thighs.

  
  


Just little mental illness things like

forgetting stuff

thinking you forgot something because your short term memory is bad but you actually did it

panicking

self-injury

 

My vision kind of blacked out and I heard Owens and Reigns keep talking to each other and probably to me, but all I could think of was a voice in my head telling me how I should probably just open the door and jump out of the car. I ignored that voice.

Just my luck to realize I fucked up while on the most fucking desolate stretch of I-94 in the whole damn state. I was sweating even it was freezing in the car. You're making everyone else late, my brain told me. You fucked up and you probably don't matter after all.

I pressed my temples and tried to think positive thoughts. I'm an okay person. I am loved and needed. People care about me. People care about me because I make the company money. I'm one back injury away from never working again, signing autographs at conventions in podunk nowhere with all the other has-beens.

"Dean, it's okay," I heard an actual voice say, cutting through the white blur. "Stay with me."

"Come on, drink some water," another voice said. Owens pushed a water bottle at me and I drank. It was a nice sensation to focus on.

Finally we came to an exit and Roman got off. We pulled into a gas station parking lot. I jumped out as Ro popped the trunk for me.

I rummaged around, grabbing my duffel and tossing it on the ground trying to avoid a puddle of melting snow. I pushed stuff to one side and finally I saw it: the handle of the stupid bag that white leather title gets carried around in. I pulled it out, still seeing sparkles in the sides of my vision, and opened it to see I hadn't lost anything at all. Well. Except my chill.

I felt a hand on my back, rubbing between my shoulder blades. It felt good, but it's the kind of thing you can't admit feels really good when another guy does it to you, you just have to like bro-nod, jerking your head back in acknowledgement that someone is comforting you.

But then Owens just hugged me, like pulled me into a bear hug and slapped me on the back. "I'll kick your ass if you really lose the title before they let me win it off you," he said, giving me some shit.

"Yeah, I think I have it coming," I said, not hugging him back but at least accepting that this is what we were doing now.

So I slept in the car the rest of the way and they let me. And then I cut a random promo on Owens and acted maybe ten percent less crazy than I was feeling, and then we beat the shit out of each other at the main event, and it felt pretty good. When I tell him to stiff me, Owens always will. You don’t have to tell that man to fuck you up twice. Well, if you do, he’ll fuck you up twice. I got a little color the hard way from the edge of the steps but boo fucking hoo. It wasn’t enough for the staple gun and thank fucking Christ for that.

It was quiet upstairs for a while after that. But it never lasts.

The profession breeds mental illness. If it doesn't shame you into it, it beats it into you. Even if they ban unprotected chair shots to the head, they don't ban getting screamed at for hours for not being good enough, fit enough, for not saying the right things, for not saying enough things, for saying too many things. For being in a picture with the wrong person. For wearing the wrong color shoes that day, it makes you crazy, you never know what you're supposed to be doing and not doing, they just yank the rug out from under you, you never fucking know.

But we keep going, right? We keep leaving the house every morning or whatever. So then something else happened--I'm not going to say what diva because I don't want to get her in trouble with the wellness program. But it's one I like. (I like most of them so this doesn't narrow it down enough to tell who it is, so don't even try.) We went out to dinner, right, because we were all in Texas that night and that's what you do. You gotta see people while they're being normal and not while they're being their gimmick, otherwise you forget who they are and then you forget who you are and people get really worried when you don't respond to your own name.

Anyway it's me and her and some people you probably don't know super well cause they’re new and we were drinking and having a good laugh about, like, all the crazy things you do when you're stuck in a car with fucking wrestlers for hours and hours. These people are just kids, they think my CZW stories are super impressive. But I'm like, you're too pretty to ever have to get put through barbed wire for money. And she gets really quiet and the other people just keep talking but I hear her go, "Better that than throwing up after every meal," and she rolls her eyes like it's a little aside.

And then I get that stabbing pain in my chest from when I say something fucking dumb, like, of course it's hard for the divas, they've gotta do the same fucking shit we do but also look cute and have the eyes of about eight jillion creepy men looking at their tits all the time. Nobody's had a serious talk with me about getting breast implants and even if I was a girl I'd probably punch them if they did. And then I’d get fired. 

So what do you do after somebody casually tells you they're puking up their food? I wanted to hug her but she's not my girlfriend or shit. I felt bad for my fucking pity party. I snuck a fork under the table and starting poking myself in the leg through my jeans to take my mind off how I'm a terrible person and how no one should talk to me ever. It's nice to wear jeans instead of trunks in the ring because I can hide all my treasures, all my stupid pinpricks and razor blade scars.

Last time I got caught I told the trainer it was from kinky sex, and I just started describing it in detail, making up shit, I think I made up some shit that people don't even do, and that shut him up real fast and he left me alone and checked all the boxes that I'm not doing drugs and am super A+ healthy and not going to...you know.

I spaced out from the conversation, stabbing myself with the corner of the fork, getting in a hole in the outside seam of my pants leg, and then I fuckin feel somebody's hand on my arm and goddammit if she didn't catch me doing it. She just gives me this look, right? Like, wide-eyed, all the care and concern in the world, while I hide the fork in my sleeve and look for my drink. "You're bleeding," she says. Fuck.

I can't even come up with anything to say, and she's like touching me and calling me by my real name. "So we're both kinda fucked up?" she says, which was funny because this is a girl who never swears. I laughed, like, surprised.

And then someone comes up behind me and asks for my autograph.

Which I signed. Then I got some more whiskey from the bar, and drank it, and told some more dumb stories, and then I staggered back to my hotel room. 

 

So. That’s everything that happened since the last time I saw you~~~~

That black-on-black suit was bangin, by the way. I am stealing that.

D

A

M

M

I

T

I miss you, you stupid motherfucker. Get better so I can kick your ass some more. I know you like it. I think you like it, at least, and I like it. Or you could beat my ass. Beat me at Scrabble. Tell me I’m not a bad person. It’s not the same without you. When you were here, home was everywhere we went, but nothing feels like home anymore.

-D

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking of this as my Ponyboy!Holden Caulfield!Dean AU, so I'm writing with a certain kind of first-person male persona here? That I am sheepish about using because cliches. But, first of all, things are rough all over, and second of all, don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do...well, you know what happens.


End file.
